Get off the brink; time to govern

Our opinion: The House Republicans’ all-or-nothing approach to debt and deficit talks isn’t a negotiating position, but a prescription for gridlock.

If President Obama had come out a few months ago and said that he was willing to reduce federal spending by trillions over the next decade and cut back key social programs like Medicare and Social Security in exchange for ending some tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and corporations, many in his own party might have wondered if he had cut some secret deal with Republicans.

Yet even as Mr. Obama and many Democrats in Congress are ready to accept those very terms, compromising on many of their core positions just to secure a deal to keep this country from defaulting on its debt, House Republicans continue to dig in. While the President has been willing to risk alienating many in his party’s liberal wing, House Speaker John Boehner and his more mainstream colleagues appear to be cowed by a minority of radical freshman whose influence far exceeds their numbers.

They refuse to budge from an anti-tax, anti-government position, holding the nation and its economy hostage. The gun to America’s head is the threat of its first default in history, with potentially disastrous consequences for this country and the world.

With just days to go before the nation reaches its debt limit, it is time for them to end the brinkmanship.

It’s time for them to remember — or perhaps come out of their self-absorption and realize for the first time — that Americans didn’t elect them alone. They didn’t vote to hand the reins of government over to a relatively small bloc of ultra-conservative armchair economists.

Instead, in 2010 they left the Democrats in charge of the Senate and gave the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. They elected liberals, conservatives, moderates. They elected newcomers and incumbents. They elected people with different ideas of what the Constitution means, what government is for and how best to fix the economy and create jobs.

In short, they gave no one an absolute mandate.

It is time for intransigent House Republicans, from the tea partiers to the Capital Region’s Chris Gibson and the Hudson Valley’s Nan Hayworth, to accept that nobody gets to win their most extreme position in a negotiation.

It is time for them to heed conservative voices like Mickey Edwards, a former House Republican leader during the years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Mr. Edwards has looked at what Democrats have offered and said that “If I was there, I would say, ‘My God, declare victory.’”

It is time for them to accept a plan that puts the debt limit battle to rest at least through the 2012 elections, not just patch it up for a few months and thrust it into the election season for political gain. And if they could stop shouting anti-tax slogans for just a little while, they might see that it’s also time to take advantage of the opportunity before them, right now, to cut the deficit that they supposedly went to Washington to trim.

That would be the responsible thing to do.

But if the Republicans aren’t up to that — if they’re determined to spend this entire session and the rest of this President’s first term doing nothing but campaigning for the next election — next year’s budget deliberations certainly offer another chance to engage in that debate, and in plenty of brinkmanship.

Right now, though, it’s time to put down the gun, step away and govern.

14 Responses

“It is time for intransigent House Republicans, from the tea partiers to the Capital Region’s Chris Gibson and the Hudson Valley’s Nan Hayworth, to accept that nobody gets to win their most extreme position in a negotiation.”

I don’t recall a similar editorial during the health care “debate.”

“It is time for them to accept a plan that puts the debt limit battle to rest at least through the 2012 elections…”

Democrats good, Republicans bad. I find it funny that in your paper New York State just received an “F” rating on taxes and your paper is
advocating more taxes on the federal level to solve the financial mess were in.

New York State should be the last state advising congress on to get their financial house in order, it’s almost laughable.

outlaw lilith – Why, because these brainless Tea-vangelists will unite the country against them (and their corporate masters), to finally crush the war the very rich are waging against the rest of us? In 2012, we either become the nation Jefferson envisioned, or we become a corporate controlled Right-wing fascist state, kept in order by brown shirted Tea Party types.

“And if they could stop shouting anti-tax slogans for just a little while, they might see that it’s also time to take advantage of the opportunity before them, right now, to cut the deficit that they supposedly went to Washington to trim.”

How do they cut a deficit when the president is spending 4 billion dollars a day? Seriously. 4 billion a day!

Excuse me, but “the President” isn’t spending $4billion a day, the US is spending it, with the advice and consent of Congress. So let’s get off this “Obama bad, tea party good” incantation and move on to governing. Those are the blinders that need to come off, before the tea party ruins our country. the art of governing includes negotiation, which the Republicans have refused to do even when the Democrats concede.
I hate what Obama has given up, I think he’s caved too much already, but if that’s what’s needed to move forward then that’s what has to happen.

when the tea partiers signed on to a no tax pledge they gave up the ability to govern and became puppets to the wealthiest in this country. Well the puppeteer will not be able to keep them from the wrath of the American people if they let the government default thereby hurting every citizen and killing an already fragile economy. It is time to govern for the benefit of all americans.

In spite of the Democrats crying about the Republicans holding up the pasting of an increase in the debt ceiling the Republicans are correct.You can not continue to spend more than you take in and this is what the Democrats have done for decades and now it has caught up with them.Obama’s incompetence and inexperience shows every time he opens his mouth on TV.He doesn’t know what he is talking about,a completely incompetent President that should never have been voted into office.

give me a break!!! The democrats have spent more than we have taken in???? Lets see now…. we have 2 wars that were never on the books.. under a republican administration that cost 10 billion a month… oh.. .those dang democrats… oh.. lets see… there was this little program called Medicare Part D.. when the head of CMS declared that the program was going to cost much more than the actuarial amounts presented, he was essentially told to shut up!! Oh.. lets see now.. how was the budget under the clinton administration???? Give me a break… I am so sick of the republican mantra…no new taxes… cut taxes… cut taxes.. don’t touch the loopholes… cut taxes… it makes me want to puke!! I hope americans come to their senses and realize what the republican party is all about… the same as the one under the Reagon administration… bleed the government dry… put heads of agencies that favor business and then complain how government doesn’t work. President Obama has moved so much to the center but will never be able to reach it b/c the republicans continue moving to the right… When David Brooks acknowledges the same, it is pretty enlightening!!

BO’s speech on Monday night was an embarassment to the presidency, yet again showing he has no plan and harkened back to his days as a community organizer, whipping a frenzy of us versus them mentality. He presented no plan. His budget sent to the senate was voted down 97-0. He ignored the recommendations of his own debt commission in December. The senate, led by H Reid, has yet to produce a budget of their own in 2.5 years.
Your assertion that there was no mandate in the 2010 elections is merely an attempt to deny the reality. Clearly the massive number of Republicans elected into the House suggests that that the people of the US are plainly tired of Obamanoneconomics. Spending almost a trillion dollars on a plan to keep unemployment below 8% and have it sit at 9+% for longer than any recession in recent history probably means the 2012 election will not bode well for the democrats either.

The Dems had the house, senate and the whitehouse, they could have done what they pleased, no question. What they did do was not pass a budget, or even have a plan. Now the repubs put three plans on the table and the Dems still have no plan, no plan at all !! Its easy to pick apart someones detailed plan, but to do so when you have not even tried to do your job is pathetic. Come up with a plan, then there will be a debate regarding your ideas. Tax the rich is a bumper sticker, not a plan !!

How about this plan, immediately repeal the Bush era tax cuts for anyone making more than $500,000 dollars a year. Pass a clean debt ceiling bill (like the ones passed multiple times when Bush Jr was in the White House) and stop playing politics with our economy.